Summary
- A Gulfstream 100 private jet crashed near Ingalls Field Airport in Virginia on Sunday.
- The crash resulted from a failed emergency landing attempt.
- The plane reportedly hit multiple trees before catching fire.
A small twin-engine Gulfstream 100 private jet crashed near Ingalls Field Airport (HSP) in Bath County, Virginia, around 15:00 on Sunday. The deadly crash resulted in the loss of five passengers onboard. The aircraft reportedly caught on fire upon impact in the woods near the airport.
While dozens of first responders rushed to the scene, the tragedy was unavoidable and resulted from a failed attempt to perform an emergency landing at the nearby airport. The aircraft had been enroute from Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport (FLL) but diverted to Ingalls Field a few hours after takeoff.
In the wake of the accident, the facility closed the runway involved, and large sections of Route 703 near the airport. It will remain closed until further notice. The specific cause of the crash has yet to be determined, and a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation is pending.
Incident specifics
At this time, many questions remain unanswered about this incident and what may have caused it. However, there are a few details that sources have been able to confirm about this deadly crash.
According to FlightAware, the aircraft in question was registered as N1125A. It was owned by the Aviation Trust Company, an Oklahoma-based holding company that helps private operators register their jets. N1125A was first registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2006 and was manufactured in 1991.
The Gulfstream 100 is a twin-engine business jet produced for Gulfstream Aerospace by Israeli Aerospace Industries and was formerly known as the IAI Astra 1125. As per data from ADS-B Exchange, the plane took off from FLL’s Runway 28R shortly before 13:00.
Photo: MS_Digital | Shutterstock
ABC News reported that the County Sheriff’s office received a call reporting the crash at 14:58, and the area’s fire brigade was dispatched immediately to the scene. Reports later confirmed that the plane had run short of the runway during an attempted emergency landing before hitting several trees in the nearby woods and catching fire upon impact with a nearby hillside. The pilot, copilot, and three passengers, including one child, were pronounced dead at the scene.
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The accident killed two individuals onboard the aircraft.
A similar recent incident
Sunday’s incident is not the first fatal private jet crash in recent memory. Just last month, a Bombardier Challenger 600 aircraft crashed on a Florida freeway while on final approach at Naples Airport (APF).
The NTSB would later confirm that the pilot lost control of the aircraft after losing both engines while on approach to the airport, and two people died as a result of the crash that followed. The footage of the billowing smoke caused by the crash went viral and, alongside Sunday’s incident, has continued to stoke unease about the safety standards in private aviation.
